• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.187-195
• /
• 2018

Buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) are widely used as highly ductile seismic devices, with the first building using BRBs completed in 1989 in Tokyo, and thousands more now in Japan, USA, Taiwan, China, New Zealand and other countries. Although design codes of several countries specify BRB performance criteria, detailed design provisions are not necessarily provided, as BRBs are typically treated as a manufactured device. This paper briefly reviews the early history of BRB research and offers state-of-the-art views on the design criteria required to obtain stable and reliable performance. Representative project examples and up-to-date studies relevant to tall buildings are summarized.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.27 no.6
• /
• pp.675-689
• /
• 2018

Buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) have received considerable attention in seismic design of various types of structures. Conventional BRBs are composed of steel core and surrounding steel tube filled with concrete. Eliminating the steel tube can be advantageous to BRB. In this study the idea of replacing the steel tube by CFRP layers in BRBs is proposed. The advantages of this type of BRB are mentioned, and its design criteria are introduced. The construction procedure of two BRB specimens is described. The specimens are uniaxially tested based on moderate, and severe earthquake levels and the performance of the specimens is investigated. The backbone curves resulted from the hysteresis curve are presented for the design proposes. The results of this study show that CFRP layers can effectively provide the expected performance of the encasing, and the proposed BRB can be considered a viable alternative to the conventional BRBs.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.589-611
• /
• 2016

This paper presents an analytical study aimed at evaluating the seismic performance of steel moment resisting frames (MRFs) retrofitted with different approaches. For this, 3, 6 and 12 storey MRFs having four equal bays of 5 m were selected as the case study models. The models were designed with lateral stiffness insufficient to satisfy code drift and hinge limitations in zones with high seismic hazard. Three different retrofit strategies including traditional diagonal bracing system and energy dissipation devices such as buckling restrained braces and viscoelastic dampers were used for seismic upgrading of the existing structures. In the nonlinear time history analysis, a set of ground motions representative of the design earthquake with 10% exceedance probability in fifty years was taken into consideration. Considering the local and global deformations, the results in terms of inter-storey drift index, global damage index, plastic hinge formations, base shear demand and roof drift time history were compared. It was observed that both buckling-restrained braces and viscoelastic dampers allowed for an efficient reduction in the demands of the upgraded frames as compared to traditional braces.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.1581-1598
• /
• 2015

A concentric braced steel frame is a very efficient structural system because it requires relatively smaller amount of materials to resist lateral forces. However, primarily developed as a structural system to resist wind loads based on an assumption that the structure behaves elastically, a concentric braced frame possibly experiences the deterioration in energy dissipation after brace buckling and the brittle failure of braces and connections when earthquake loads cause inelastic behavior. Consequently, plastic deformation is concentrated in the floor where brace buckling occurs first, which can lead to the rupture of the structure. This study suggests reinforcing H-shaped braces with non-welded cold-formed stiffeners to restrain flexure and buckling and resist tensile force and compressive force equally. Weak-axis reinforcing members (2 pieces) developed from those suggested in previous studies (4 pieces) were used to reinforce the H-shaped braces in an inverted V-type braced frame. Monotonic loading tests, finite element analysis and cyclic loading tests were carried out to evaluate the structural performance of the reinforced braces and frames. The reinforced braces satisfied the AISC requirement. The reinforcement suggested in this study is expected to prevent the rupture of beams caused by the unbalanced resistance of the braces.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
• /
• v.26 no.6
• /
• pp.523-535
• /
• 2014

According to the capacity design concept underlying current steel seimsic provisions, the braces in concentrically braced frames should dissipate seismic energy through cyclic tension yielding and compression buckling. On the other hand, the beams and the columns in the braced bay should remain elastic for gravity load actions and additional column axial forces resulting from the brace buckling and yielding. However, due to the difficulty in accumulating the yielding and buckling-induced column forces from different stories, empirical and often conservative approaches have been used in design practice. Recently a totally different approach was proposed by Cho, Lee, and Kim (2011) for the prediction of column axial forces in inverted V-braced frames by explicitly considering brace buckling. The idea proposed in their study is extended to X-braced seismic frames which have structural member configurations and load transfer mechanism different from those of inverted V-braced frames. Especially, a more efficient rule is proposed in combining multi-mode effects on the column axial forces by using the modal-mass based weighting factor. The four methods proposed in this study are evaluated based on extensive inelastic dynamic analysis results.

• Computational Structural Engineering
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.109-118
• /
• 1992

Lateral bracing has long been used in design practice to enhance the carrying capacity of the lateral buckling of the beam. Many factors, critically important to lateral bracing performance, do not appear in design formulas. Some of these factors are discussed in this study for the application to short I - beams under repeated loadings through parametric studies with an analytical model : the brace location along the length of the beam, the height of the bracing above the shear center of the beam, and the strength and stiffness of the brace. The parametric studies are carried out using a propped cantilever arrangement, and also using a geometrically (fully) nonlinear beam model for the brace as well as the beam to capture the system buckling. An idealized bracing system is configured to restrain lateral motion, but not rotation. A multiaxial cyclic plasticity model is also implemented to better represent cyclic metal plasticity in conjunction with a consistent return mapping algorithm.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.491-506
• /
• 2014

Buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) have excellent hysteretic behavior while buckling-restrained braced frames (BRBFs) are susceptible to residual lateral deformations. To address this drawback, a novel self-centering (SC) BRB with Basalt fiber reinforced polymer (BFRP) composite tendons is presented in this work. The configuration and mechanics of proposed BFRP-SC-BRBs are first discussed. Then an 1840-mm-long BFRP-SC-BRB specimen is fabricated and tested to verify its hysteric and self-centering performance. The tested specimen has an expected flag-shaped hysteresis character, showing a distinct self-centering tendency. During the test, the residual deformation of the specimen is only about 0.6 mm. The gap between anchorage plates and welding ends of bracing tubes performs as expected with the maximum opening value 6 mm when brace is in compression. The OpenSEES software is employed to conduct numerical analysis. Experiment results are used to validate the modeling methodology. Then the proposed numerical model is used to evaluate the influence of initial prestress, tendon diameter and core plate thickness on the performance of BFRP-SC-BRBs. Results show that both the increase of initial prestress and tendon diameters can obviously improve the self-centering effect of BFRP-SC-BRBs. With the increase of core plate thickness, the energy dissipation is improved while the residual deformation is generated when the core plate strength exceeds initial prestress force.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.47-55
• /
• 2003

This study proposed a convenient seismic design procedure for buckling-restrained braced frames based on the equivalent energy concept. The design process begins with the computation of input energy from response spectrum. Then the elastic energy and plastic energy are computed based on the equal energy concept. The computed plastic energy is distributed to each story along energy distribution ratio and the cross-sectional area of each brace is computed so that all the plastic energy is dissipated by the brace. The proposed procedure was applied to the design of three-, six-, and twenty-story steel frames with buckling-restrained braces, and artificial earthquake records were used for verification of the proposed method. According to analysis results, top story displacements of the low-rise structure satisfies the given target displacement however that of the twenty-story structure was much smaller than the given target displacement.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.71-81
• /
• 2009

In this study, the seismic performance of the Buckling Restrained Knee Bracing (BRKB) system was evaluated through a pin-connected one-bay, one-story frame. The BRKB system developed in this study was composed of a steel plate as a load-resisting core member and two channel sections to restrain local and global buckling of the core plate. The main purpose of the BRKB system is to restrengthen/rehabilitate old low- and mid-rise RC buildings, which, it is assumed, were designed with non-seismic designs and details. The main variables for the test specimens were the size of the core plates and the stiffeners, and the condition of the end plates. The test results showed that the size of the core plate, which was the main element of the load-resisting member, was the most important parameter in achieving a ductile behavior under tension as well as compression until the maximum displacement exceeds twice the design drift limit.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.81-96
• /
• 2019

The behavior of a new Three-Tube Buckling-Restrained Brace (TTBRB) with circumference pre-stress (${\sigma}_{{\theta},pre}$) in core tube are investigated through a verified finite element model. The TTBRB is composed of one core tube and two restraining tubes. The core tube is in the middle to provide the axial stiffness, to carry the axial load and to dissipate the earthquake energy. The two restraining tubes are at inside and outside of the core tube, respectively, to restrain the global and local buckling of the core tube. Based on the yield criteria of fringe fiber, a design method for restraining tubes is proposed. The applicability of the proposed design equations are verified by TTBRBs with different radius-thickness ratios, with different gap widths between core tube and restraining tubs, and with different levels of ${\sigma}_{{\theta},pre}$. The outer and inner tubes will restrain the deformation of the core tube in radius direction, which causes circumference stress (${\sigma}_{\theta}$) in the core tube. Together with the ${\sigma}_{{\theta},pre}$ in the core tube that is applied through interference fit of the three tubes, the yield strength of the core tube in the axial direction is improved from 160 MPa to 235 MPa. Effects of gap width between the core tube and restraining tubes, and ${\sigma}_{{\theta},pre}$ on hysteretic behavior of TTBRBs are presented. Analysis results showed that the gap width and the ${\sigma}_{{\theta},pre}$ can significantly affect the hysteretic behavior of a TTBRB.